Privacy Mode

Keep your meeting audio on your device. No cloud bot, no native API, no data leaves your hardware until you choose to upload.

Last updated: April 2026

What privacy mode does

Privacy mode is a master switch in your Note Genie account settings. When it's on, the Capture Coordinator (the brain that decides how each meeting gets captured) refuses to dispatch any cloud capture tier for your meetings. That means:

• No bot joins your meetings. The Note Genie cloud notetaker (the visible participant that normally joins Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams meetings on your behalf) is suppressed for every meeting in your account.
• No native API integrations capture audio. Even if you have Zoom RTMS, Microsoft Teams native, or Google Meet native integrations connected and active, privacy mode bypasses them. Microsoft, Zoom, and Google never receive a request to stream your meeting audio to Note Genie.
• No calendar auto-join. Even if you have Google Calendar or Outlook connected with auto-join enabled, privacy mode prevents the cloud bot from being dispatched for any meeting on those calendars.
• Audio stays on your device. The only way audio gets into Note Genie when privacy mode is on is if you manually record locally (via the Chrome extension or desktop app) and then choose to upload that recording yourself.

Why use it

Privacy mode is built for users who need total control over where their meeting audio lives. Common use cases:

• Regulated industries (healthcare, legal, finance) where compliance teams have strict rules about where audio can be stored or transmitted
• Sensitive internal discussions (M&A, layoffs, security incidents) where the meeting host wants zero risk of cloud-side leaks
• Government or defense work with strict data residency requirements
• Personal preference — anyone who wants Note Genie to be a local-first tool by default

How it works under the hood

Privacy mode is enforced at three independent layers, so even if one fails the others still hold the line:

1. Server-side Capture Coordinator. The dispatchCapture() service inspects your privacy mode preference before evaluating any tier. If privacy mode is on, the function short-circuits and returns the privacy_mode tier — no scheduled meeting row is written, no bot is dispatched, no native integration webhook is consulted.
2. Calendar scan worker. The background worker that scans your connected calendars for upcoming meetings calls findOwningPassiveTier() for every event. When privacy mode is on this returns privacy_mode and the worker skips the event entirely — no bot dispatch is scheduled.
3. Chrome extension client-side check. When you join a meeting in your browser, the Note Genie extension calls /capture/preview to ask the coordinator what tier owns this meeting. When the answer is privacy_mode, the extension forces local-only tab capture and never calls /bot/join.

How to turn it on

1. Sign in to Note Genie at notegenie.org/login.
2. Go to notegenie.org/settings.
3. Find the Privacy Mode section.
4. Toggle Local-only capture on. The change saves immediately and applies to every Note Genie surface (web, mobile, desktop, Chrome extension) the next time they fetch your preferences.

How to record locally with privacy mode on

Privacy mode disables the automatic capture path. To still get a recording into your library, you record manually using one of these surfaces:

1. Chrome extension. Open the Note Genie popup, click Record → Voice or Video. The extension captures locally on your device. When you stop, the popup asks if you want to upload to Note Genie now or keep the file local-only.
2. Desktop app. Click the Note Genie tray icon, click Record. The recording is saved as a local file. Upload manually when you're ready.
3. Mobile app. Tap the record button on the home screen. Audio is saved locally and queued for upload. When privacy mode is on, the upload step requires explicit confirmation each time.

Once you choose to upload, the recording goes through the normal Note Genie processing pipeline (transcription, AI summary, indexing) — but only after you've explicitly authorized it for that specific recording.

How to turn it off

Toggle the same setting back off in notegenie.org/settings. Privacy mode is fully reversible — turning it off does not delete any local recordings or change any past data, it just re-enables the cloud capture tiers for your future meetings.

What privacy mode does NOT do

It's important to know what privacy mode is and isn't. Some clarifications:

• It does not encrypt your existing recordings differently. Recordings you uploaded before turning on privacy mode are stored the same way they always were (encrypted at rest, but in our cloud).
• It does not delete past recordings. Your existing library is unchanged. To delete recordings, use the delete action in your library or delete your account.
• It does not turn off the AI processing for recordings you do manually upload. Once you choose to upload a recording, it goes through the standard transcription and summarization pipeline.
• It does notprotect against third-party recording. If someone else in the meeting is recording, that recording exists outside of Note Genie's control.

Support

Questions about privacy mode? Email support@notegenie.org — we're happy to walk through how it interacts with your specific compliance requirements.